Attorney General Kamala Harris Protects CA Students From a Raw Deal

Yesterday, Corinthian Colleges announced a deal to sell 56 campuses to ECMC. Higher Ed, Not Debt hopes the Department of Education is correct that ECMC will put student’s interest first. However, ECMC has a storied history of harshly preventing the discharge of students’ loans in bankruptcy. It’s troubling that ECMC has never run an educational institution, so we wonder whether it has the ability to take over 56 struggling institutions. All students should have the opportunity to opt out of the sale and receive a full refund, including full loan discharges of both federal and private loans.

While we are still waiting to learn the full details of the deal, thanks to the Attorney General of California, we know that Everest, Heald, and Wyo-Tech campuses located in California are not a part of the sale. Instead of dropping the State of California’s lawsuit against Corinthian so that ECMC would feel comfortable purchasing the campuses, Attorney General Kamala Harris renewed the State’s commitment to “continue to act aggressively in the best interest of the many Corinthian students in California who have suffered as a result of Corinthian’s alleged wrongdoing, and to pursue any and all relief and restitution for those students.”

Thanks to Attorney General Harris’s commitment to helping Corinthian students, students at California schools are spared from this questionable deal. David Hawn, president and chief executive of ECMC told the LA Times that, “After a number of discussions with the California attorney general’s office, we felt it was best to leave [California] campuses behind.” We are glad they did.  We applaud Attorney General Harris’s commitment to California students and to ensuring that their interests come first.

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